Conrad Studies

Articles

Vol. 7, 2012

We think our Fathers Fools, so wise we grow; Our wiser Sons *, no doubt, will think us so."(Alexander Pope: cAn Essay on Criticism'.)I WROTE this book in 1971. Eventually, it was published in 1977 by Mursia International of Milan, the proprietor being...

TO BEGIN with an immediate declaration of interest: Heart of Darkness is the best short novel I know, and in my opinion it is the finest and richest of Conrad's works. The tale is exciting and profound, lucid and bewildering; it is highly compressed,...

i. AMBIGUITYWHEN THE TALE was first published, as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine in 1 899, the title was The Heart of Darkness. Obviously enough, the title-phrase can mean "the centre of a dark (sinister, evil, corrupt, malevolent, mysterious or obscure)...

i. (a) Uses of the ConventionBY "the 'oblique narrative' convention" I mean the convention of the tale within a tale, whereby the "inner" narrative is presented in the words of a fictional narrator whom we first meet in the "outer" or enclosing narrative....

i. (a) The Company's HeadquartersMARLOW PROCEEDS to tell us how he got the appointment which took him to Africa. After "loafing ashore" for a while, he had sought unsuccessfully a further seafaring post; then one day the sight of a map of Africa had...

i. (a) The Voyage down the African CoastON LEAVING EUROPE, Marlow travels as a passenger on a French steamer which puts soldiers and customs officials ashore at various lonely outposts on the African coast; eventually the seat of government is reached....

i. LINGUISTICWords have killed images or are concealing them. A civilisation of words is a civilisation distraught.(lone s co : journal)Neurath's comment on the famous last sentence of the Tractatus "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"...

IN THE YEAR after the appearance of Heart of Darkness, Conrad published Lord Jim. Jim is in some ways a counterpart to Kurtz, for Jim lives among and leads a community of natives in a remote jungle, and his fortunes and destiny become inextricably interwoven...